Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

First, I gotta say I love the Bees. We've seen a lot of land together. But I was wondering, do they ever get tired so to speak? For three years now my first set of Bees has been nothing but reliable. But here lately I've got two units that just aren't keeping up. Sometimes they fire, sometimes they don't. Granted, I shoot pro rodeo and it's a dusty, dirty some times hard place to be. Always indoors, climate controlled. Firing them off with PW+ II's. Thought it was the PW's, replaced all the batteries and Sync cords, problem still exists. Thought my transmitter was broken as the antenna wobbles all over the place. So I tried two different transmitters (the whole TT1 system is crap, BTW) and that didn't fix it either.
Shooting 4-800's at half power for fast(er) recycle times. Not popping them off at real high speeds, max would be 6-7 shots in 8 seconds. Every couple of months I take some canned air and blow the dust out of them. Put up and stored after every use in the big black case.
Do the Caps inside these units dry up and cause mis-fires? Two units still performing flawlessly, two are starting to crap out.
Any thoughts? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Dave-0

I shoot rodeos and barrel races about every weekend, and use 1 AB800 with several X1600's.

Try setting the AB to its lowest setting, with no remote, and just hit the test button on the back a bunch of times, and see if it keeps firing reliably, or if it drops out.

Ours did that a while back, and we sent it in and they replaced some parts, and it is pretty reliable now - except for remotes... The Pocket Wizards are driving me nuts! I usually have to reposition a wizard to make sure the antenna isn't blocked, or something like that.

Most likely dirt and dust in the sync jack. I suggest dipping a sync plug in alcohol several times and each time, inserting it in the AB jack and rotating it around. Also, the weight on the sync cords on AB can tend to cause bad contact - try wrapping them around the top of the light to remove downward pressure. This may do the trick.

I recently cleaned the sync plug terminals with a pipe cleaner and a q-tip actually, didn't use any alcohol though. I'll try that. And oddly enough, I've been running the cord up and over the top of the unit to reduce the weight pulling down on the jack itself. Cool, must be doing something right.
On a different note, hope all is well with you and your extended families from all the flooding and rains you've had there recently, King Laup. Our thoughts are with ya'll.

Thanks for the thoughts. We are 100% dry, up and running. Downtown by the river is a total wreck . . . I don't go there!